Incubo
by ClaireJackson
Summary: It was just a dream – but tonight, in the dark of her unfamiliar room, with her heart crying out for the two people she loves most in the world, her reality is just as awful a nightmare.


The labyrinth walls are high, the space between the thick bushes on each side just wide enough for her to inch through. It's dark, nighttime, and the acrid scent of pine gum and the tickle of wayward branches against her cheek are all she knows for certain.

She also knows that she is completely alone. The silence around her resonates like thunder, the weight of it oppressive against her eardrums.

No stars, no moon. Just miles upon miles upon miles of suffocating terrain.

There's something she has to do. Something she needs to find. She doesn't know what it is, but the aching pull in her chest is more familiar than anything.

She takes a step forward. The world is so black, the darkness as thick as velvet, that she can't even see her hand in front of her face.

Another step forward. Her bare foot snaps a twig in two. Another step. Silence.

Her heart thrums in her chest, strong, pulsing adrenaline into her limbs.

There's something she needs to find.

"Mommy."

Her head whips around in the direction of the voice, a branch from the labyrinth walls scratching the flesh of her cheek.

"Mommy," the high-pitched voice repeats, farther away now.

And then she's running, her bare feet scraping against the rough ground of roots and sticks and leaves. Her arms push the thick bristles of the labyrinth walls out of the way.

"Mommy can't catch me…" the child's voice teases, laughing, and she can hear the sound of the child's feet now, hitting the ground not far in front of her.

"William?" She calls out.

"…was a bullfrog…was a good friend of mine…" the child's voice sings an off-key but so familiar tune, and the sound reaches her ears as if she's underwater, echoing and muted and farther away.

"Where are you?" She cries, blindly following the path of the labyrinth in the direction of his voice.

"…Joy to the world, all the boys and girls…"

Close. She's so close.

She pushes her legs faster. "William!"

The wind begins, just a breeze at first, rustling the branches around her.

"William?"

Silence.

She strains her ears but all she can hear is her own laboured breathing and her heart in her ears.

"William!" He voice tears from her throat, raw and desperate.

The wind picks up, and her hair is a tangled mess around her face, and she's blindly pushed forward towards the darkness ahead.

The child's voice now, inside her head, the high-pitched timbre ricocheting inside her mind. _Help me, help me, help me._

"Will!"

 _Find me, Mommy, help me._

And then suddenly a light, so bright it makes tears leak from the corners of her eyes, white light, illuminating the entire pathway before her, and down, down, down at the end of the trail, before a sharp bend, William is crouching, his little body curved in the way only toddlers can, drawing something in the dirt with his finger.

A strangled laugh escapes her throat, the joy, the joy, the _joy_ of seeing her little baby, her treasure.

"Baby," she calls, and jogs toward him, a smile splitting her face. "Sweetheart. It's okay."

Elation.

So close. She's twenty feet away now.

Ten feet.

Five feet.

The light shuts off.

Darkness. Pure black, all around.

"William?" She crouches and drops to her hands and knees, crawling forward. Her arm stretches out gently, tentatively, feeling through the inky blackness for her son's soft downy head.

Nothing. Her movements become desperate, spastic. He's not there. He should be there, right there, she saw him, but he's not.

Her hands find the cold dirt, and suddenly there's a hole beneath her searching hands, a space where the hard ground gives way to nothingness.

"Down the rabbit hole," her baby's toddler speak whispers in her ear, _right_ beside her ear, and she just manages to clasp his arm before his little body falls in, down…down…down….gone…gone…help him help him get him get him get him oh god oh no –

The earth slams hard into her back.

But it's not the earth. It's her bed. Her mattress. Her sheets against her legs. Her pillow under her head. Her bedroom.

"Mulder," she chokes, and she reaches out automatically, her hand smoothing across the space beside her to shake him awake.

Cold bed.

Downstairs, she thinks, he's downstairs at his computer.

"Mulder," she calls, disoriented, lost, and she throws back the covers and staggers to the bedroom door before she remembers.

He's not downstairs.

Downstairs is another apartment, belonging to a friendly old woman who brought her brownies when Scully moved in three weeks ago.

Mulder is over an hour's drive away, in the house they first bought together, all those years ago.

Mulder is not with her. She is not with Mulder.

She's alone. He's alone. William….William is alone.

 _It was a dream_ , she whispers to herself, as the tears rise over and trickle down her heated cheeks.

 _Just a dream_ , she tries to soothe herself as he would have, wrapping her arms around her own belly and sliding down the wall to curl up near the doorframe.

Just a dream – but tonight, in the dark of her unfamiliar room, with her heart crying out for two of the people she loves most in the world, her reality is just as awful a nightmare.


End file.
